Email messages supposedly sent by the popular department stores chain Wal-Mart promises recipients a rather large amount of money by simply participating in a survey. The messages also state that the money will be credited to the respondent’s account once the survey has been completed. Here’s what the spammed message contains:
Congratulations!
You have been selected to take part in our quick and easy 9 questions survey
In turn we will credit $90.00 to your account - Just for your time!
The survey has been sent only to a few people from our random generator !
Please spare two minutes of your time and take part in our online survey
so we can improve our services.
Don’t miss this chance to change something.
To participate in this survey, Click Here
With the information collected we can decide to direct a number of changes to improve and expand our online services
Note:
-If you received this message in your SPAM BULK folder, that is because of the restrictions implemented by your ISP
-For security reasons, we will record your ip address, the date and time.
-Deliberate wrong imputs are criminally pursued and indicted
Copyright 2008 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Survey ID
WWLEKFTSYXDYVLUOSDMVCBRJEXCXCIRWTTFHDQ
A link to the “survey” is provided in the message. This is definitely a scam as Wal-Mart has no such survey, and is not paying potential victims of this scam $90 to answer nine questions. Spammers added some notes to make the email message more believable though. Warnings are written at the bottom of the mail such as the recording of the respondent’s IP address “for security reasons” and the more threatening “deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicted.” Email messages are also marked High Priority.
Clicking on the link leads users to the phishing site
Scammers again seem to be exploiting the shopping frenzy that comes with the holidays. Christmas and Thanksgiving related Web threats often prey on users’ enthusiasm for purchasing products whether online or not. Several Trend Micro blog entries also document other spamming operations that have similar social engineering techniques:
The Trend Micro Smart Protection Network already blocks this email message, keeping users away from the phishing website. Non-Trend Micro users are advised to not participate in surveys that come from unsolicited messages. Not clicking links in unwanted messages, or those from suspicious senders also keeps systems safe from threats.